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Pitt sent the ship's officers up to the pilothouse to report to Captain Burch. To a man, they offered their services, which were gracefully accepted.
McFerrin was the last man down.
Pitt was waiting for him and caught his arm to keep the burned and exhausted man from stumbling and falling. He looked at the seared flesh on McFerrin's fingers and said, "A pity I can't shake the hand of a brave man."
McFerrin studied his burned hands as if they belonged to someone else. "Yes, I think it will be awhile." Then his face clouded. "I have no idea how many, if any, of the poor devils who made their way to the bow are still alive."
"We'll know soon," Pitt replied.
McFerrin looked around the survey ship, seeing the waves slosh over the work deck. "It would seem," he said calmly, "that you are in an extremely perilous situation."
"We do what we can," Pitt joked with a grim smile.
He sent McFerrin to the hospital, then turned and shouted to Burch up on the bridge wing. "That's the last of them on the stern, Skipper. The rest went for the bow."
Burch simply nodded and closed down the thruster control console. Then he moved into the pilothouse. "The helm is yours," he said to the helmsman. "Take us around to her bow nice and easy. We don't want to aggravate whatever damage there is to our hull."
"I'll treat her as gently as a butterfly," the young man at the helm assured him.
Burch was greatly relieved to move his ship away from the cruise liner. He sent Leo Delgado down to sound the hull for buckled plates and leaks due to the battering. While he waited for the report, he called down to Chief Engineer Marvin House. "Marvin, how does it look in your neighborhood?"
Down in the engine room, Chief House stood on the walkway between the engines and eyed the thin stream of water that was pooling around their mountings. "My guess is we have major structural damage somewhere up forward, probably in one of the storerooms. I've got the main pumps working at full capacity."
"Can you keep ahead of the flow?"
"I've ordered my crew to set up auxiliary pumps and hoses to help stem the flood." House paused, and then as he looked around at the cruise ship survivors who were jammed in every open inch of his beloved engine room, he asked, "What does it look like topside?"
"Packed like Times Square on New Year's Eve," answered Burch.
Delgado returned to the pilothouse, and Burch knew by the grim look on the officer's face the report was far from pleasant.
"Several of the plates are crushed and sprung," Delgado gasped, out of breath from running up from below. "Water is coming in at an alarming rate. The pumps are keeping ahead of the flow, but they won't be able to cope if the sea gets much worse. If the waves rise over eight feet, all bets are off."
"Chief House says he's going on auxiliary pumps in an attempt to stay ahead of the flow."
"I only hope it's enough," said Delgado.
"Round up the damage-control crew and go to work on the hull. Shore up and reinforce the plates the best you can. Report to me any change in the leakage, good or bad, immediately."
"Yes, sir."
Burch was staring apprehensively at the sullen gray clouds that were building to the southwest when Pitt returned to the pilothouse. Pitt followed the captain's gaze. "What's the latest on the weather?" he asked.
Burch smiled and pointed through a skylight at the twelve-foot-diameter dome that held a Doppler radar s
ystem. "I don't need up-to-the-minute meteorological predictions of storm dynamics by a state-of-the-art computer to tell me that we're in for a blow within the next two hours."
Pitt gazed at the gathering clouds no more than ten miles away. It was full daylight now, but the dawn sun was hidden by the menacing clouds. "Maybe it will pass us by."
Burch licked an index finger and held it in the air. He shook his head. "Not according to this computer." Then he added ominously, "There is no way we're going to stay afloat."
Pitt wearily wiped his brow with his bare arm. "Figuring the average weight of the men, women and children at one hundred twenty pounds, Deep Encounter is transporting an extra one hundred twenty tons, not counting her crew and scientific team. Our only salvation is in staying afloat long enough to transport most of the survivors to another vessel."
"No way we can make for port," Burch added. "We'd sink before sailing a mile."
Pitt stepped into the radio room. "Any word from the Aussies and the tanker?"
"According to radar, the Earl of Wattlesfield is only ten miles away. The Aussie frigate is coming on strong, but she still has thirty miles to go."
